


All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Questionable Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marten, Faye, and Dora finally do something about all that unresolved tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dex webster

 

 

'So you totally dig Faye still.'

Dora watched Marten with intent eyes as he rifled through his record collection looking   
for the right album to set The Mood. At her words, he froze, caught like a deer in   
headlights, or possibly a bunny. More likely a bunny, she thought, because bunnies were   
cuter, and Marten was very cute like this, with his eyes wide as the sky and his kissable   
mouth a little O of shock.

'Well...' he began, at such a clear disadvantage that she had to suppress her grin. Boys,   
like most creatures, were easier to manipulate when they didn't know they were being   
manipulated.

'It's okay, Marten. It's not like I don't _know_. I kind of dig her too,' Dora said with   
deliberate casualness. Her lips twitched into the smile she'd been holding back. She   
thought that if there had been a thought bubble over Marten's head, it would have read '...'

With only a small measure of facetiousness, she went on, 'It's like a rule that Goth chicks   
(or formerly Goth chicks, in my illustrious case) be into other chicks, you know? Don't   
look so surprised! You're not _that_ innocent.'

'Well, no, I mean, I knew that, but...' Marten's fingers flipped through the pages of a CD   
wallet, and though he stared at it, she could tell his eyes weren't focused on the colorful   
discs. And if it wasn't just a trick of the light, he was blushing.

That was just too cute. It really was. She thought her lady parts might just... well, do   
something unladylike if he kept blushing.

'But?' she prompted, one dark eyebrow lifting in inquiry.

'But... my luck with women is so bad that I try not to think about more than one at a time   
in any sort of meaningful context?'

'Wise man.'

'Hey, I know, let's listen to this and pretend we didn't just have this conversation! Go,   
Yoshimi, go!'

Marten was already hitting play, and the Flaming Lips did their thing, coming from the   
speakers like an assault on the pink robot horde. Dora just smiled. Boys were cute when   
they thought they were being clever and even cuter when she knew they weren't. Marten   
was endlessly entertaining in that respect.

*****

'So... last night, did you mean that?'

Marten's question didn't surprise Dora, nor did she need to ask for clarification on what   
he meant. He had that Look again, that bunny-in-headlights expression that meant he was   
trying to wrap his brain around the subject of Faye. It stung more than she wanted to   
admit sometimes, but that was what made this all the more necessary; she was just glad   
Faye wasn't here yet.

'I try not to say things I don't mean, except for when I'm totally lying. Would you like a   
cup of coffee to go with that bafflement? Existential dilemmas go down better with   
caffeine, like the medicine and the spoonful of sugar, but for angst-ridden, disaffected   
twenty-somethings.'

'Why do I find it so hard to believe that you're familiar with _Mary Poppins_? Isn't   
there some kind of injunction in the Goth code against happiness and little animated   
birdies?' Marten asked, running a hand through his mess of dark hair before giving her a   
hapless smile. 'That's idiotspeak for "Yes, Dora, I would love a cup of coffee", in case   
you were wondering.'

'Un unh, mister man, your Free Coffee Because My Girlfriend Owns The Shop rights just   
expired!'

'Hurr. Days like this, I open my mouth and stupid comes out. Hurr. I can't help it. It's a   
medical condition.'

'Undoubtedly caught from Pintsize,' Dora smirked, her eyes sparkling as she poured a   
coffee. 'If it exists, he's probably carrying it.'

'Is that for me?' Marten gestured towards the cup as she fitted the lid to it, his expression   
so puppyish and hopeful that her heart caught in her chest.

'All yours, big boy.'

'Not so big,' came the familiar voice, the words accompanying the chime of the door and   
dripping with playful disdain. 'I could still take him in a fair fight, _womano a  
mano_.'

'I'd pay to see that! Could I put in a special request that this be done in a giant vat of   
pudding?'

Faye glared at Dora, her cheeks touched with a telltale trace of pink, but she retorted   
without skipping a beat, 'You know where the requisition forms are, boss.'

Stroking an imaginary handlebar mustache, Dora began to cackle an evil cackle, her head   
thrown back to emit the terrifying vampiric laugh she'd perfected back before she'd tried   
this whole Getting A Life thing. It still possessed the uncanny ability to make people   
slowly back away.

'Uh, okay. Well, I will just be over here... away from psycho-boss-a-tron 3000,' Faye   
murmured, inching closer to Marten. Under her breath, she muttered, 'Is she on some   
kind of medication I do not know about?'

'Huh?' Marten blinked. 'Oh. No. No, unless...'

'...' Faye punched Marten in the arm, eliciting a cute little whimper from him. 'You know   
better than to play those games with _me_! I know where you live!'

'You know where I live too. Come over tonight when you get off work.'

'Are you leaving early, Skeletor?'

'Booze run, Faye! I have to pick up your friends before the party.'

'Damn skippy! Would not be a party without 'em. You do that, and as a special favor to   
you, I will crush the egos of everyone who comes through that door.'

Marten laughed. 'But you'd do that anyway.'

Faye punched him again and boosted herself onto the counter with a look of haughty   
disdain. Dora shook her head and made for the door.

*****

By the time Faye and Marten arrived at Dora's apartment, all was ready. With Mieville's   
evil help (which mostly consisted of him allowing her to shut him up in the bedroom),   
Dora had transformed her living room into a Pudding Wrestling Arena. If all went   
according to plan, all three of them would be 'wrestling' by dawn.

'Mwahaha!' Dora raised her fists above her head in triumph as she went to open the door.

'Mwahahahaha!' she said again by way of greeting as she took their coats and let them in.

'That's nice. You've been working on that,' Marten said as he kissed her cheek. 'You're   
developing more resonance. It's starting to sound like it wouldn't be out of place on a   
Type O Negative album.'

'It is part of a new promotion she is running at the shop: free evil laugh with every Coffee   
of Doom purch--'

Faye's sudden silence set Marten on edge, and he turned slowly to face the same direction   
as Faye. Dora watched their faces as they struggled to come to terms with a large kiddie   
pool filled with chocolate pudding standing just where they usually plopped their asses   
on her couch.

'The boss doesn't need requisition forms,' Dora announced cheerfully, giving them both a   
little push. Before Faye could slug her, she held out a bottle of Booker's. Faye's eyes took   
on a glazed cast.

'Is that--?'

Dora smiled. 'It is, if you get into the pudding bath like a good little girl.'

'I accept your terms. Oh, sweet, sweet bourbon, come to mommy!'

Faye grabbed the bottle from Dora's hands and opened it at once. She was buzzed before   
she finished that first long swig.

Her booze-shiny eyes narrowed behind the glint of her glasses, and she added in a   
dangerous tone, 'I will require whatever I do tonight never to leave this room.'

'What happens at Dora's stays at Dora's,' she agreed.

Marten glanced at them with that adorable befuddled expression, and then shrugged. 'If I   
displease you, I fully expect that you will lay the whoop-ass down. I fear the whoop-ass.'

'But apparently do not fear ending sentences with prepositions! You are a brave man   
indeed despite your well-founded fear of my vengeance. Now stand back, I am going in.'

*****

Marten lay staring at the ceiling as the sun poured through the curtains, one arm under   
Faye's head and one cuddled around Dora. Faye was still sound asleep, cocooned in a   
beautiful, drunken dream state. As Dora woke, she curled closer to Marten and reached   
across him to trail her fingertips down Faye's smooth, naked back.

' _That_ was unexpected,' Marten whispered, clearly trying not to wake Faye and just   
as clearly having spent the time before Dora woke wondering whether or not last night   
had really happened.

'Was it really?' Dora asked, blinking slowly, a sated, happy lassitude possessing her every   
movement and coloring her tone with amused weariness. 'You didn't notice me plotting   
stuff? I was plotting stuff!'

'I didn't think it would work! _My_ plots never work.'

'That's because you're a boy, sweetie.'

Dora leaned in to kiss Marten's pout, and then leaned further across him to give Faye's   
butt a nice squeeze. A contented little moan spilled from her lips, and she squeezed it   
again, kneading the soft, round flesh in her hand just because she finally could. She rested   
her head on Marten's slender chest, already half asleep by the time she realized that his   
hand was on her ass.

'Share and share alike,' he murmured. 'Or, that's what you said last night, anyway. Or   
maybe it was, "I hope you brought enough for the entire class." Either way, I assume it   
still applies.'

'You know what they say about assuming...' Dora said, not being so obnoxious as to   
finish the truism.

'That it makes an ass out of u and ming?' Faye mumbled, stretching out as she rolled over   
to fling her arm over Marten's chest. Her eyes went wide as her hand landed on Dora's   
warm skin. 'Okay, I am going to count to ten, and when I reach it, someone had better   
have put my glasses on my face, because I need to see this to believe it.'

'Probably not even then!' Dora reached across both of them to the nightstand and grabbed   
Faye's glasses. Then she settled in again and slipped them onto her face.

Faye blinked at them for a while, and no one said anything. No one even breathed. Then   
Faye made a sound that Dora recognized as unwilling, disgruntled pleasure.

'Anyone got the weather report from Hell this morning?' Faye asked, pulling the sheet up   
to her chin without actually pulling away.

Before Dora could so much as confirm its emergency state of blizzard, a bright flash   
glared in their sleepy eyes, accompanied a moment later by a distinctive, computerized   
voice.

'Oh, that one's going to be popular on P2P! You guys should charge for this stuff and give   
me a portion of the prof--'

In the frenzy of motion that followed, there was a ripping sound as Faye bolted with the   
sheet still wound around her, then a loud crash, a horrific grating of warping metal, and   
finally a triumphant 'hmph!'

Faye returned to the bedroom a moment later, crawled back into bed without offering to   
restore the sheet to its rightful joint ownership, and took a long swig of the remaining   
bourbon straight from the bottle in her hand.

From the other room came a muffled query.

'Is someone going to eat this pudding?'

 


End file.
